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Ryan Hemsworth Is the Man Behind the Mix

Audio production equipment has become so widespread, and the art of remixing so democratized, that often young beatmakers aren’t worth the ink. But 22-year-old producer Ryan Hemsworth has dropped so many important tracks in recent months that he’s become impossible to ignore. One reason: With a background in music journalism, Hemsworth consistently picks potent young artists to work with (Frank Ocean, Cat Power, Angel Haze). But far more important is his knack for taking a sensual track and making it even more seductive. “I’m really a fan of R&B, so I think sensuality and mood are important to my ears,” he says. “Sexiness over abrasiveness is always the way to go.” On the heels of his monumental show this past weekend at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, Hemsworth takes us through five of his most important tracks.

“I’ve always been pretty self-conscious with the stuff I make, and this one taught me to ignore that voice in my head. I didn’t want to drop the track, and my friend Corey was like, ‘Just do it.’ I think this is the one that caused people to start, like, caring about me. It was just one of those times I wanted to flip a song on its head. I was totally in love with the original, but Grimes has a sound that translates to this half-time club vibe very comfortably. So it was all about that—bringing Grimes to the club. Literally bringing Grimes to the club would be tight as well.”

“The Rhye remix was an exercise in patience. Honestly, when I’m working on something, my brain is like, ‘Add this, add this, add this,’ because it’s easy to hide behind a million elements. It’s really hard to just make a song with like five noises and present it to someone. But tracks like this give me some confidence to fight that urge to overcompensate. And it’s fun to rely more on atmosphere than instrumentation. For example, I sampled a lot of these breathy noises from an old David Lynch short film. I think little things like that are often overlooked when you’re creating but always so appreciated by the listener.”

“When you’re making stuff on a computer with beat grids and the same synths that everyone else has, it’s really good to challenge yourself in every possible way. Making a Cat Power track with Angel Haze vocals, without making it sound weird, was a fun challenge. I just wanted to give them a warm, open space to kind of sensually backhand whoever it is they’re talking about in the song.”

“I’ve got like three or four Frank Ocean bootlegs. This is the one that matters. It was an important test in timing. I made it to play out in the club and just wanted to add some heaviness to it. Some friends liked it. I passed it to my friend Frances who was interning at the Fader. They premiered it, and now it has over a million plays on YouTube. Ocean’s hype was building big time when I dropped it, and I guess that’s always something to keep in mind as an artist coming up. It’s okay to ride a coattail here and there.”

“This one’s a total power-of-the-internet thing. Tinashe is this crazy underrated singer-songwriter who got picked up by RCA. They reached out to me for a remix, and it was a super natural thing—I think I made it in a day or two, max. When you’re given awesome, perfect vocals to work with, it’s kind of hard to mess it up. Anyway, fast-forward like half a year, and we’re now working on original material.”